The Champion (11 page)

“All species used to think faster-than-light travel was impossible,” the Harrah said. “But just because we’ve achieved what was once thought impossible doesn’t mean that which
now
seems impossible will be achieved, or is achievable at all. One of your kind’s ancient philosophers said something similar to that.”

“My kind? You mean a Purist?”

Patah sighed. It didn’t sound all that different from when Rosalind did it.

“Young Quentin, I am doubtful anyone from your home system ever said
anything
that could be construed as intelligent. By
your kind
, I meant
Humans
. If you want me to grow a finger and graft it on, that is definitely possible. However, remember what I said about how replacement limbs can affect performance.”

“But it’s only my pinkie,” Quentin said. “It’s not even on my throwing hand.”

“The Human nervous system is just that — a
system
. Add something and the system changes. If you can play with just nine fingers, I would strongly suggest you continue to do so. I need to know now, however, if you want it regrown. If you do, I need to leave as much material as possible for grafting purposes. If you do not, I will trim this damaged stump away and properly seal up the hand. But heed my warning, young Quentin — adding material to your body could cause unforeseen issues.”

“Such as?”

“Difficult to say. I’ve seen injuries that cause pain in the replaced area only, and some that cause ongoing, incurable pain across the entire nervous system. Some people develop tics. Sometimes these things can be controlled with medicine, but that type of solution can slow your reaction time, or affect your ability to grasp the ball.”

Quentin pictured himself trying to pass, his aim marred by random, stabbing pains or an uncontrollable twitch. If he couldn’t grasp the ball properly, he’d be more susceptible to fumbling it.

“But a regrown finger does work sometimes, Doc. Doesn’t it?”

“Of course,” Doc said. “Sometimes the process goes off without issue,
if
the patient follows a strict recovery protocol. That part, I believe, will not be to your liking.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because proper protocol means no contact for about a year after the procedure.”

No contact for a
year
? Quentin would miss the next season, and even then there was no guarantee the process would be successful. If there was constant pain, he might have to just get the new pinkie amputated anyway.

“No replacement,” Quentin said. “No transplant. Do what you need to do, Doc. I’ve got a lot of football-playing years ahead of me.”

“Assuming we don’t die in the Cloud, of course.”

“One can only hope.”

Doc Patah slid a mouth-flap into his backpack and came out with a wicked-looking little saw blade.

“Very well, young Quentin.” Doc turned on the saw. The circular blade whined. “Let us begin.”

9

Punch-Out

QUENTIN STOOD ALONE
in the viewport bubble. The Leviathan had brought them to the edge of the Portath Cloud, released them, then blinked back into punch-space. Rosalind was preparing a punch of her own. She had asked everyone to return to the room with the blue walls. Quentin had dallied, needing a few moments to himself.

He stood there, staring out into space. Everywhere he looked, a vast, endless sea of black flecked with chips of light.
Emptiness
. Everywhere except for straight ahead. There, growing bigger as the ship drew closer, Quentin saw the expanse of the Portath Cloud — an angry, electric-purple mass lit up by the deep glow of the stars hidden within.

The Cloud
. A place from which no ship returned.

And inside, somewhere, was his sister, Jeanine, and his friend Fred. Quentin had traveled so far just to get here, and likely had much farther to go.

The walls sighed.

“Quentin, do you mind?” Rosalind, talking to him through the walls, the floor, the ceiling, through the clear bubble itself. “I’m about to initiate a punch into the Cloud, and I need to close up your viewport. Not that anyone ever listens to me, of course. I mean, why would they? I’m only a century-old ship that has probably seen more of this galaxy than any other sentient alive. Who would want to listen to me blabber? It’s not like my experience is—”

“For High One’s sake, Rosalind,
shut up
.” Quentin turned away from the viewport. “I’m going, I’m going. Can you please stop whining?”

He’d wanted the
Grieve
, a dreadnaught that would strike fear into the hearts of any sentient. What he got instead was a ship that complained about
everything
, and wasn’t all that much bigger than his own yacht.

“
Whining
, Quentin? Honestly, there’s no need to be mean. I only want what’s best for you.”

Quentin turned and walked toward the corridor. He sensed, more than saw, the bubble he’d just left closing up behind him, the clear material shrinking into the collapsing walls.

He didn’t pray often, but at that moment, he did — he prayed that Rosalind had some fight in her.

Because they were going to need it.

BOOK TWO

The Portath Cloud

10

First Contact

QUENTIN SAT ON ONE
of Rosalind’s couches, eyes closed, waiting for the reality wave to wash over him, to
twist
him. When it hit, he felt his atoms shift from the false existence of punch-space into the world he knew, the world in which he belonged.

They were back in normal reality — which meant they were finally in the Portath Cloud, one step closer to finding Jeanine.

He opened his eyes. Ju sat on a couch across from him, calm and relaxed. John sat on Ju’s left, Becca on his right. Kimberlin stood in a corner, still reading his messageboard, while George Starcher was in a chair. Doc Patah hovered in the middle of it all.

“Hey, Q,” Ju said, “we punched out and you didn’t barf. Maybe people can finally sit next to you and not have to worry about spew-spray.”

Becca smiled. “He’s right, Q. You haven’t thrown up from a single punch on this trip. Maybe you’re over your motion sickness?”

John rolled his eyes. “Nah, pretty boy just has something other than himself to worry about for a change. We rescue his sister, I got a hundred credits that says he makes mouth-chowder first punch after.”

Ju offered his hand to his brother. “You’re on.”

They shook, sealing the bet.

Quentin stood. He did have things other than himself to worry about, that was true, but he was getting tired of John’s attitude. Hopefully his brother would stop making snide comments sometime soon.

“Let’s go to the bridge,” Quentin said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and Bumberpuff will find the
Hypatia
right away.”

WHEN QUENTIN AND THE OTHERS
reached the bridge, Bumberpuff was staring at a hologram with a miniature representation of Rosalind in the center.

“Nothing yet,” she said before Quentin could even ask. “We’re alone. No sign of the
Hypatia
. I’m sorry, Quentin.”

Of course, it couldn’t be that easy, but he’d held out hope for a miracle.

“I want to see for myself,” he said. “Can you grow that viewing deck again?”

Rosalind sighed. “Don’t trust my observations, Quentin? Well, fine. I don’t mind, as long as it makes you happy. Hold on a moment.”

The gnarled material beneath his feet rumbled and vibrated. Quentin saw the room’s walls waver, large chunks of gnarled black moving and shifting. Then, he saw a few stars: Rosalind’s hull became transparent. Seconds later, a full viewport bubble formed.

“As you requested,” the ship said. “By all means, see if your tiny little Human eyes can spot something I missed.”

Quentin stepped into the bubble. The others hung back, obviously wanting to give him his space.

Far off, in all directions, he saw the Cloud’s signature amethyst glow. Three hazy, glowing orbs dominated the space straight ahead. Quentin couldn’t begin to estimate how far away those stars were. Smaller, teardrop-shaped stars surrounded them, tails pointing away from the trio.

He turned to his friends. “Mike, can you come here for a second?”

The HeavyG lineman joined Quentin in the bubble.

Quentin pointed to a teardrop-shaped star, then another, then another. “Why aren’t those spherical?”

“The three right in front of us are known as the Triplets,” Kimberlin said. “Three stars so big, so powerful, the radiation coming off them creates solar wind that overpowers nearby stars, stripping off outer gas like a river slowly eroding a clump of dirt.”

Quentin had never seen anything like it. Stars were usually dots of light on a field of endless black. Here, the stars fought to be seen against the background glow, and there were so
many
of them, packed in more densely than what he’d experienced standing on the surface of any planet or ship.

So much to see, and yet the area immediately around Rosalind looked like any other kind of space: garden-variety blackness.

“We must be in a pocket or something,” Quentin said. “There’s no gas around us, just off in the distance.”

“Oh, it’s there,” Kimberlin said. “The gas is extremely dense, relatively speaking. But even gas that is dense by galactic standards is incredibly thin when compared to, say, the atmosphere on Micovi. So, you
are
inside the Cloud. You can tell because you see purple in all directions instead of just one. Thought you’d see streamers of purple drifting in our wake, like in the movies?”

Quentin nodded. “That’s exactly what I thought I’d see. Life is never like in the movies.”

Mike laughed and shook his big head. “So says the orphan from Micovi, born with a cannon for an arm, who wound up in the PNFL because someone saw him
throw a rock
, who then moved up to the GFL, where he heroically won a Galaxy Bowl and became one of the most recognized sentients in the galaxy. The one person whose life actually
is
like a movie doesn’t think life is like a movie at all.”

Sometimes, Mike’s know-it-all attitude annoyed the hell out of Quentin.

“Like you’re any different,” Quentin said. “The HeavyG offensive guard, one of the few of his race playing a position dominated by Ki, winning not one, not two, but
three
Galaxy Bowl rings. And your past, getting over what happened to you, and ...”

Quentin’s words trailed off when he saw Michael’s expression fade from happy and interested to sullen and regretful. Mike had a dark chapter in his past, during his tenure with the Jupiter Jacks. Quentin knew Mike had killed a teammate — and not on the practice field, where such things might happen in the course of a football player’s life — but didn’t know any of the details, not even who had died.

“Sorry,” Quentin said. “I didn’t mean to bring that up.”

Kimberlin shook his head, forced a smile. “Nothing to apologize for.”

Maybe someday Mike would talk about it. If so, Quentin would be glad to listen. For now, though, Quentin needed to stay focused on the task at hand.

He turned to Bumberpuff.

“So, Captain — what now?”

“Now, we grasp at straws,” Bumberpuff said. “We followed the
Hypatia’s
last-known path, but this location is where the trail ends. We can broadcast a signal, hope the
Hypatia
receives it and also hope someone on that ship is still alive to answer. But we are close to the interference zone, Quentin. Our signal won’t—”

“Won’t go far, I know,” Quentin said. “Do it anyway. We have to try anything we can.”

Quentin stared out the bubble. Stared
hard
. He would find Jeanine. He had to. She was out there, somewhere. He refused to believe she was gone.

Kimberlin spoke quietly.

“Quentin, I know you hoped the
Hypatia
would be here. Since she’s not, I must ask if you understand the impossibility of what we now face.”

“We’re not leaving, Mike.”

The HeavyG nodded. “I would expect you to say nothing less. Of course, we must make at least a cursory search of this sector, especially since we’ve encountered no hostility.
Yet
. But to find a ship in an area where scanners barely work, it’s—”

“She’s lost because of
me
” Quentin snapped. “So is Fred. If Jeanine weren’t my sister, Gredok or Anna Villani or whoever caused this wouldn’t have been hunting her. She’s my
only family
, Mike — I’m not leaving until I find her.”

Kimberlin took a slow breath, chose his words carefully.

“Jeanine is not your only family,” he said. “The people that came with you, they came because they love you. All of us knowingly risked our lives to help you find your sister, but the truth is you barely know Jeanine. She is family, true, but your
real
family is here with you on this ship. The longer we stay in the Cloud, the more likely that some — or
all
— of that real family will die. Just think about that, will you?”

Quentin again looked out into the purple-tinged void. Part of making
the hard choice
was hearing, and accepting,
the hard truth
. Kimberlin had delivered it. If there was no hope of finding Jeanine, was it right to ask these people — and this living ship — to stay here any longer?

“All right, Mike. I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you,” Kimberlin said. “I know how hard this is for you.”

Quentin closed his eyes for a moment. Kimberlin knew how hard it was to lose the only family member he had left? Quentin doubted that. He doubted it very much.

A long beep sounded from the walls: the familiar tone of a proximity alarm. Quentin’s heart raced and his hope surged, but that hope shifted to fear when Rosalind spoke.

“We have contact,” the ship said, her tone sharp and urgent “We’ve got company, and it’s not the
Hypatia
.”